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250
HALO EFFECT
251
252
Procedure
The subjects were 118 University of Michigan students enrolled in introductory psychology; 62 were
males and 56 were females. The results for the two
sexes were entirely similar and therefore were combined for presentation. The subjects participated in
the experiment in groups of 6-17. Sessions were conducted in such a way as to insure that no overt
communication between subjects took place. (But in
any case, conclusions are not affected when the group
rather than the individual was used as the unit of
analysis.) On arrival, the subjects were ushered into
a well-appointed conference room with chairs oriented
toward a 19-inch (.48-meter) television monitor.
The subjects were told that the psychology department had recently conducted a large-scale evaluation
of teachers of introductory psychology:
At the end of the term teachers were evaluated by
their students on a number of dimensions, ranging
from traditional questions of teaching effectiveness
to questions about matters such as physical appearance and mannerisms We are interested in
finding out whether evaluations of teachers who
are seen in brief videotaped interviews at all resemble the evaluations of these teachers by students
who were exposed to them for a whole semester.
We will ask you to look at these videotapes and
then rate the teachers on some of the same dimensions employed in the original study.
The subjects were then shown two videotaped interviews All subjects were first shown a 7-minute
filler interview with a bright and pleasant instructor
who answered such questions as, What is your general educational philosophy? Do you encourage student discussion? How do you handle evaluations of
student work? Then half the subjects saw the Belgian instructor answer the same questions in his
warm guise and half saw him answer the questions
in his cold guise Each of these interviews also lasted
about 7 minutes.
The warmness or coldness of the instructor was apparent in his answers to virtually all the questions
For example, in his warm guise the instructor answered the question about student discussion by saying that, yes, he encouraged discussion and that he
was stimulated by the give and take it provided and
felt that it enhanced student interest in the lecture
material. In his cold guise he answered the question
by saying that he didn't allow much discussion because "there's a time to be a student and a time to
be a professor" and he wouldn't be the professor if
he didn't know more than they did. In his warm
guise the instructor answered the question about
evaluation of student work by saying that he gave
paper assignments that the students seemed to like
and profit from and gave exams that were a mixture
of objective questions and thought questions. In his
cold guise he said he gave weekly multiple-choice
quizzes because otherwise " y u can't trust them to
do the reading."
HALO EFFECT
Dependent Measures
After seeing each interview, all subjects were asked,
"How much do you think you would like this
teacher?," and were asked to rate him on an 8-point
scale ranging from "like extremely" to "dislike extremely." The questionnaire then read: "Listed below
are some characteristics of the teacher you saw.
Please indicate how you think you would feel about
each of the characteristics if you were to take a
course from the teacher" The characteristics included physical appearance, mannerisms, and for the
Belgian instructor, accent. The subjects rated each
characteristic on the scale below:
extremely appealing
very appealing
somewhat appealing
slightly appealing
slightly irritating
somewhat irritating
very irritating
extremely irritating
In addition, 34 subjects were told that the investigators were interested in knowing "how much, if at
all, your liking for the teacher influenced the ratings
you just made." The subjects indicated their answers
on scales of the following type:
My liking for the teacher caused me to rate his
physical appearance:
much higher
higher
slightly higher
had no effect
slightly lower
lower
much lower
Another 56 subjects were asked to indicate "how
much, if at all, the characteristics you just rated influenced your liking of the teacher." The subjects
indicated their answers on scales of the following
type:
Physical appearance made me like him:
much more
more
slightly more
had no effect
slightly less
less
much less
After responding to the questionnaire, the subjects
were quizzed intensively about their reactions to the
videotapes and to the questionnaire items, and then
were debriefed.
80
Evaluations of Attributes
The manipulation had a very pronounced
effect on liking of the teacher. The t value
COLD TEACHER
Physical Appearance
60
PERCENT
OF 4 0
SUBJECTS
20
0
80
Mannerisms
60
PERCEUT
OF 4 0
SUBJECTS
20
0
80
Accent
60
PERCENT
Of 4 0
SUBJECTS
20
Results
253
APPEAUW
IRMTHIIC
APfOLIK
IRRITATIHC
254
and half as irritating, whereas the overwhelming majority of subjects in the cold condition
rated his accent as irritating (* = 3.78, df
1/117, p< .0002).
The results demonstrate that global assessment of a person can powerfully alter evaluations of particular attributes. That is, this is
the case if one is willing to make the assumption that the attributes manifested by the
confederate were in fact constant across experimental conditions. Although this is a reasonable assumption, it is by no means indisputable. It might have been the case, for
example, that the teacher smiled a lot in his
warm guise, thus making his appearance more
appealing and/or frowned a lot in his cold
guise, thus making it less appealing. Similarly,
his mannerisms, both physical and verbal,
might have differed when he was playing the
two roles. It is even conceivable that his accent might have been less pronounced and
harsh when he was playing the warm role
than when playing the cold role.
In order to demonstrate that the teacher's
physical appearance did not in fact differ
across the two conditions, a follow-up study
was conducted with 34 subjects from the same
introductory psychology pool. These subjects
80
WARM TEACHER
|
COLO TEACHER
Physical Appearonc*
60
Kucat
Of
4 0
SUBJECTS
20
WARM TEACHER
Physical
60
COLD TEACHER
Appearance
PERCENT 4 0
Of
SUBJECTS 2 0
PERCENT
OF 4 0
SUBJECTS
20
60
PERCEUT
OF
4 0
SUBJECTS
20
DECREASED M
RATNK
EFFECT
MOUSED
ROM
DECEASED
M
RATHK
EFFECT
INCREASED
BATIK
80
60
PERCENT
or
40
SUBJECTS
20
80
60
PERCENT
OF 4 0
SUBJECTS
20
DECREASED 0
RATH*
EFFECT
INOEASED
MTK
DECREASED NO INCREASED
RATUK
EFFECT
RATHX
HALO EFFECT
subjects, in both the warm and cold conditions, believed that their overall liking for
the teacher had not influenced their ratings.
Moreover, for all ratings in both conditions,
as many subjects felt that their overall evaluation had increased their ratings as believed
it had decreased their ratings. None of the
distributions differs significantly from the
zero, no effect point (all six one-sample ts
not significant).
Fifty-six subjects were asked if their evaluations of the teacher's appearance, mannerisms, or accent had affected their liking of the
teacher. Figure 3 presents the results. It may
be seen that the subjects who saw the warm
teacher were divided on the question of
whether the ratings of particular attributes
affected liking. Only for the physical appearance question did the majority of subjects
express the opinion that appearance had had
no effect on liking. For the other two questions, approximately equal numbers of subjects believed that the ratings had increased,
decreased, or had no effect on liking. None of
the three distributions differs significantly
from a mean of zero.
For the subjects who saw the cold teacher,
the results were quite different. On balance,
the subjects believed that their evaluations of
each of the three attributes had decreased
their liking for the teacher. The mean of all
three distributions differs from zero (t for
physical appearance = 3.28, p < .01; t for
mannerisms = 2.80, p < .01; / for accent =
2.74, p < .01).
Thus, the subjects appear to have gotten
matters precisely backwards. Their liking for
the teacher was manipulated, and this affected
their ratings of particular attributes. Yet the
subjects did not acknowledge this effect, and
the subjects who saw the cold teacher actually
reported the opposite effect. These subjects
reported that their evaluations of the teacher's
attributes lowered their liking for him, although they denied that their liking for the
teacher had affected their ratings of his attributes. (Logically, of course, it is possible that
the subjects who saw the cold teacher are
partly right. It is conceivable that the
teacher's appearance, mannerisms, and accent
we
re all intrinsically unattractive. In that
ev
ent, the subjects who saw the cold teacher
255
256
in mathematical
psychology
(Vol. 2 ) .